buying flour, sugar etc in bulk

[snakesandladders]

Sorry didn't know if to post here or under something else, but here goes.
I do a serious amount of baking, can anyone tell me if it works out cheaper, or is indeed possible to bulk buy baking ingredients???

I have bought bread flour from Shipton Mill. But unsure whether there is any saving there. I have seen another mill called Wessex???? but have to allow for postage. Quality very good plus you buy bigger bags.

Wholesalers dont usually sell top quality stuff so you end up buying lesser quality than what you can buy at the supermarket.

Unless you are a bakery as such I dont see you'll be saving that much.

oh, ok am not a bakery, just feels like it! Thanks

I buy all my ingredients (except eggs, they don;t last long enough) from CostCo. You do have to fulfil certain criteria to be a member though and it costs £25 a year to join but it does save me a significant amount on ingredients compared to buying at Sainsbury's. It's all branded stuff - Tate and Lyle caster/icing sugar, Marriage's flour, proper Vanilla extract rather than essence.

Sugars come in 5kg bags, flour in packs of 5 x 1.5kg bags which lasts me about 2-3 months. I have a small home based cake business so I make between 4 and 10 cakes a month usually.

Hm, sounds good I shall investigate, thank you

Do you all ever have problems with weevils? Had some in the rat food (home-made mix) a few years back (shudder). Very hard to erradicate, and apparently their eggs are in lots of things already.

I used to have a problem with weevils when I lived in warmer countries. It was terrible, I had to store everything in glass jars and flour was seriously perishable (I had to use it within a month or two). Sometimes the eggs came home in a box of couscous, other times with nuts. They infected sacks of flour, rice, polenta, seeds and grains but left other things alone. And eradication was a nightmare.

I think storage space in my kitchen costs money. I used to be a hoarder but these days I keep just enough at hand - I value empty counter space and don't like being forced to use up ingredients that are just about to go stale.